Breakup on the right? Naw, Canadian conservative politicians’ long romance with the Rebel isn’t over

PHOTOS: Wildrose-UCP MLA Drew Barnes, who still stands with and by Rebel Media, at a protest on the steps of the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton in December 2015. Below: Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer (Photo: Marcos Oliveira, Wikimedia Commons), UCP leadership candidates Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, and Alberta NDP House Leader Brian Mason.

With a wave of public revulsion at Rebel Media continuing to build across Canada, most conservative politicians in this country see little alternative but to put their long and cozy relationship with the far-right commentary website on hold.

But have no doubt about it, unless the Rebel completely implodes – highly unlikely, notwithstanding its many troubles in the past week – this doesn’t mean, “It’s over.” It only means, “We’ll have to stop seeing each other for a while.”

Count on it, the romance between the Conservatives and the Rebels will continue and heat up again.

Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and former Alberta Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean, who is now one of the two leading candidates to head Alberta’s United Conservative Party, were explicit about this, albeit in a manner that required a reader or listener to carefully parse their words.

“Until the editorial directions of the Rebel Media changes, I will not grant interviews to the outlet,” said Mr. Scheer as part of a longer statement in which he talked piously about his vision for Canada (positive, he said) and some of the people to whom Rebel Media has lately been giving a platform (not so positive, he conceded).

As for Mr. Jean, he had this to say: “Recent events have me concerned with the commentary and editorial direction coming from Rebel Media. I have not appeared on the Rebel in seven months and unless their direction changes in a significant way, I will not in the future.” (The italics, of course, are mine.)

There there’s Mr. Kenney, briefly the leader of the now-also-defunct Progressive Conservative Party, a former Harper Government cabinet minister and the front-running contender to lead the UCP. He issued a string of Tweets that attacked Alberta’s NDP government for attacking him, implied Rebel Media’s editorial direction has recently changed, but never actually came right out and promised not to continue his warm relationship with what he did call the alt-right site.

He said he had not appeared on the Rebel for a year, which turned out not to be strictly true, but close enough for a Conservative campaign.

In other words, of course they’ll all find time to do interviews with the Rebel in the future, just as they have in the past. It’s just that when they’re criticized for having done so, they’ll say the Rebel has changed – as, indeed, the Rebel’s proprietor says it already has, a statement that is certainly true, if not in quite the way that matters to most Canadians, because of the string of problems that have beset the online publication in the past few days.

What has changed – and what in reality accounts for the sudden reticence of Conservative politicians to be seen on the Rebel just now – is mainly what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, the weekend before last, and the reaction of the Canadian public to a Rebel reporter’s apparent endorsement of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist thugs who flocked to the college town 185 kilometres from Washington D.C. to protest the removal of a statue honouring Confederate general Robert E. Lee, and the deadly consequences of their protest.

Here in Alberta, that prompted longshot UCP leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer to publicly disavow the Rebel, and embarrassingly box the two best-known candidates. This will win him few friends among the Rebel’s many avid supporters in UCP ranks, not to mention either of the two most likely leaders of the party.

More importantly, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley let loose her toughest political fighter – House Leader and former party leader Brian Mason – who proceeded to hammer the Opposition party’s would-be leaders for playing in the Rebel’s sandbox.

“It’s pretty clear where Rebel Media stands. And it’s pretty clear that Brian Jean and Jason Kenny are standing with them,” said Mr. Mason. “We need leaders that clearly know the difference between right and wrong. Racism and white supremacy is wrong.”

Still, without the tragic events in Charlottesville, there would have been no problem for conservative leaders like Messrs. Scheer, Jean and Kenney to continue their warm relationship with Rebel Media, despite their protestations of not having been interviewed by the website lately.

So props, after a fashion, to Drew Barnes, elected as the Wildrose MLA for the Cypress-Medicine Hat electoral district who now sits in the Legislature as the riding’s United Conservative Party representative, for speaking the unvarnished conservative truth about this suddenly delicate topic.

Would he appear on the Rebel now that it has waded into deep opprobrium, he was asked by a Medicine Hat News reporter last Saturday – although not, naturally, in quite those words.

And if some Rebel talking heads also approve of the depredations of neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Well, at least as far as this Wildrose-UCP MLA is concerned, that’s apparently no biggie, although he did express the pious hope that “the Rebel can find their focus again, and become a conservative, fair and good voice.”

Well, with the exception of the fair and good part, who says they’ve ever lost their focus?

Mr. Barnes deserves some credit for honesty, if not for political perspicacity. Then again, who needs that, considering the likely range of opinion – or lack of it – in his Deep South (Alberta) riding?

Readers can be assured that Mr. Barnes is not the only UCP MLA who thinks this way, although he may be the only one brave enough to say it aloud just now.

J.E. Molnar

August 22nd, 2017

No one can deny it any longer. Conservative political parties in Alberta and Canada flocked to Rebel media; endorsed it, appeared on it and gave it unwavering validation.

Even by denying future association with this flagrant media hate source, politicians like Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, Derek Fildebrandt, Drew Barnes, Kerry Diotte, Michelle Rempel, Rona Ambrose, Andrew Sheer and countless other conservatives clearly validated their support for this vile enterprise with their past appearances. They are now forced to duck for cover amid the shocking revelations from Rebel media coverage at Charlottesville. How au courant of them!

I think Alberta’s health minister Sarah Hoffman said it best when she described the Rebel media as — “sewer rats.” You gotta go with what works, my grandfather used to say.

Sam Gunsch

excerpt: “Ex-staffers say the operation is fixated on building its email list and subscriber base through increasingly combative and invective campaigns. But also that The Rebel lives on “mega-donors” who underwrite the operation.

And, despite the trials and tribulations of the last week, The Rebel still sits on a healthy donor base, supporters, subscribers, and staff.’

Death and Gravity

August 22nd, 2017

The post-Manning Conservative parties depend utterly on The Rebel to spread their poison. All this anti-immigrant, anti-muslim hysteria isn’t coming from thin air. It is being carefully cultivated. The roots of this go back into the 70s, with Alberta Report. Rebel Media is their direct successor, just as Kenney is Manning’s direct successor. The people and money behind them, I am sure, have not changed.

Sam Gunsch

August 23rd, 2017

This is AB reality/history: ‘The roots of this go back into the 70s, with Alberta Report. Rebel Media is their direct successor, just as Kenney is Manning’s direct successor. The people and money behind them, I am sure, have not changed.’

anonymous

Val Jobson

August 23rd, 2017

Some say that what the conservative parties really like about the Rebel is its huge database of donors and possible voters, gathered through their petitions and fundraising campaigns.. Presumably getting votes matters more to the politicians than what messages Rebel Media puts out.

Depending how much Rebel Media really brings in, perhaps it even donates to politicians?

David

August 23rd, 2017

Mr. Kenney and Mr. Jean are both quite adept at running from controversy, so I am not surprised by their “Rebel who? – we barely know it” sort of responses. Mr. Kenney’s more typical response to anything controversial is to hide away from the media for several days until it dies down and not answer his phone and have some flunkie say he is too busy out “campaigning” in some undisclosed location. Either that tactic is getting a bit stale or Mr. Kenney decided this time he should actually try to disassociate himself from the Rebel, rather than leave it up to some junior person.

However, I do believe that the marriage between the Rebel and Conservatives is somewhat one of convenience. The Rebel can make more vicious and uncalled for attacks than conservative politicians could. If it worked, the conservative politicians capitalized on it, if it was too over the top and backfired (as it often did), well they could disassociate and pull away from the Rebel.

It is sort of a political tango – sometimes they are close together, sometimes further apart, but always still dancing together. Now is the part in the tango when they are furthest apart. I suspect after the recent controversy dies down they will again come back closer together.